Getting Any?

Remember the first time your school guidance counselor asked, "What are you going to do when you grow up, Johnny?"

Maybe you were a precocious child and answered truthfully, "I'm going to get laid a lot."

The counselor would laugh or send you off to the school shrink, who would try to make you grasp reality. "No, what vocation are you going to pursue?"

A much less interesting question, but you'd answer. A policeman. A doctor. A lawyer. Anything but a school counselor.

Did you ever think the two questions might be related? Do certain professions make out more than others? Sex is a great fringe benefit for any job. Who gets laid the most, though? Do women secretly lust after certain career types? It's not exactly the kind of question that leads to a Pulitzer Prize, but we decided to tackle it anyway. We hit the streets and toured singles bars in several cities.

Most of the women with whom we talked were in their 20s and early 30s. About a third of them were secretaries. Another third were teachers and writers and the rest were saleswomen, waitresses, models, actresses and members of some 30 other occupations, from hooker to TV commentator. About a tenth were unemployed. By the time we called an end to our research, we had answers from nearly 300 women, most of whom went to singles bars occasionally and had slept with at least ten men. We interviewed women in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Miami and Atlanta; but this is in no way a statistically pure survey. It is biased in favor of young, sexually active women who live in big cities. We did not interview farm girls from Montana or 60-year-old seamstresses from Yonkers. Most of the women with whom we talked were the kind of women you probably stare at in offices and in bars while wondering if there's a chance you could score.

We chose our questions with care. You can't just go up to a girl in a bar and say, "Hey, honey, what is the occupation of most of the men you've screwed?" So first we asked an innocent question, an icebreaker: What occupation do you prefer to date? (By the way, English majors, we're perfectly aware that you don't date an occupation, you date a member of an occupation; but in a crowded bar, where the noise level approximates that of a moon take-off, you try to keep the questions as simple as possible.)

Next we asked: Is there one occupation that most of your lovers have had? That is a sneaky question. First of all, it assumes that a girl has had a number of lovers--virgins and women who had slept with only a couple of men dropped out of our survey at that point. Unfortunately, the answer to that question was usually, "Well, they haven't all had the same occupation"; so we'd hem and haw until we could see that the girl trusted us, then go in with the killer: But what occupation are you most likely to pick up in a bar or someplace like that? We also asked those women if they could name the occupations of their best and worst lays, on the theory that a girl would probably look more kindly on the second salesman she met if the first had been a ball in bed. Similarly, we wanted to find out if any occupations were nixed because their members were such notoriously bad lays--and we had a few surprises, as you'll see.

We discovered that there are two major types of women who go to bars, those looking for a rich man who will show them a good (i.e., expensive) time and those looking for a creative person who's an interesting talker (and perhaps an even more interesting fuck).

You should not conclude, dear reader, that the latter group is more promiscuous; many girls confided that when a man spends a lot of money on them, they feel somewhat obligated to sleep with him. Women who are looking for men with money are in the majority, especially in Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston. In answer to our first question, 60 percent of our interviewees said they would prefer to go out with lawyers, doctors and businessmen, in that order. A third preferred writers, film makers, musicians and artists and the rest named 40 other occupations, from physicist to cowboy. Oddly enough, only five women said they didn't have any preference as to a man's occupation.

Chicago women are looking for men with money and Los Angeles women are looking for creative men with money--film makers, directors, music producers and the like. New York women prefer musicians, writers and general odd-balls--a disproportionate number of well-dressed women at Maxwell's Plum on New York's Upper East Side said they wanted to meet explorers, drug dealers and the unemployed ("They have more time to fool around," said a 22-year-old student). Southern women, by the way, are the least particular as to a man's occupation. We found ourself agreeing with the conclusions in the April 1977 Playboy article on The Girls of the New South; namely, that Southern girls will sleep with anything that moves.

On to the next question. There is a definite discrepancy between the kinds of occupations women say they want to meet and the kinds they do meet. The same women who said they preferred to go out with doctors and lawyers generally settled for salesmen and accountants. At Butch McGuire's, a prototypical singles bar in Chicago, one girl who was looking for lawyers but dated accountants explained: "I guess I date so many accountants because they hang around bars a lot and I hang around bars a lot and we're bound to meet." The same can be said, by the way, for bartenders. Many single women who go to bars frequently search out and make friends with the bartender so that they have someone to talk with when the action is slow. Two recent graduates of the University of Illinois told us that at college, bartenders are considered campus studs, much like football players, and that many girls fight over the privilege of going out with them. Anyway, when these girls graduate and move to big cities, they find themselves gravitating to bartenders again out of habit and nostalgia. Maybe it's not too late to sign up for that bartending course.

It is not surprising that over half of our respondents told us they most often sleep with businessmen, salesmen and lawyers, since a proportionately large number of men with those occupations exist in the general population. After those, the women named musicians, writers, teachers, students and bartenders. Reasonably enough, there were a number of women who said they most often dated men who worked in fields related to their own jobs: Manicurists went out with hairdressers, models with photographers, stews with pilots, writers with other writers and actresses with actors and agents. Most women, in fact, tend to date and sleep with whoever is most available in their offices or favorite bars, rather than search out a man with a particular occupation.

There are some exceptions, however. An unemployed Cher look-alike told us she likes to get high and thus makes a point of looking for drug dealers to sleep with. A couple of writers we know share hooker-organizer Margo St. James's attraction to power and purposely seek out cops, pimps and high-level editors of girlie magazines. A 26-year-old told us that she dates only musicians. "Only a musician properly appreciates a girl's body," she said. "Besides, they have such gifted fingers--and mouths."

The second half of the questions, which dealt with the occupations of a woman's best and worst lovers, turned out to be much more interesting than the first half. Although many women had trouble nailing down a specific occupation as the one they preferred to date, few had any difficulty remembering the occupations of their best and worst lovers.

We started by asking about worst lays, because most women are more uptight about sharing the intimate details of someone they've loved than they are about bad-mouthing some poor yo-yo who couldn't get it up. Women, you men may be astounded to learn, love to talk about men's sexual prowess in quite clinical detail, and they can be merciless, especially when it comes to guys who ejaculate prematurely.

Out of curiosity, I asked one such woman what she meant by premature ejaculation and she said, "It means he came before I did, doesn't it? I mean, he never could seem to last more than half an hour."

When it comes to picking sexual partners, women do not use a great deal of logic. In our survey, we found women who said they preferred lawyers--did, in fact, date lawyers--and who also said that, for the most part, their worst lays were lawyers. That didn't stop them from dating more lawyers, however. The same thing happened with salesmen and businessmen. A teacher from Houston said she continued to go out with a lot of athletes, even though her worst lay had been an athlete: "He had a memory for a dick," she complained. Who was her best lay? "A printer." Had she gone out with other printers since? "No, I like athletes."

Of the 59 occupations described as worst lays, lawyers were named more often than any other. Following them were salesmen, students, accountants, doctors (especially shrinks), writers, teachers and actors. What was wrong with those men? Here are some opinions:

"My worst was a writer. The pen is not mightier than the sword, if you know what I mean."

"A student. He was very inexperienced and very much in love. The combination was lethal."

"Ex-seminarians and ex-priests. Sexually, they're preadolescents. They never heard of the clitoris--I'm sure they think it's a monument in Athens."

"I'm leery of men on the upper executive level, guys who make more than $50,000. Some of them have very kinky ideas about what they like. I'm not a prude, but these guys never seem to want to just fuck; they'd rather watch you masturbate or they want you to pee on them or something."

"My worst was a lawyer; in fact, my two worst were lawyers. They were both bad for the same reasons: no staying power and no sweet talk; both were master grunters."

"I had a terrible time with a doctor who forced me to do things I didn't want to do."

"An actor I slept with once wanted to look in the mirror as we made love--so he could look at himself!"

"The worst was a thief. He refused to have an orgasm--he was proud of his staying power--and he fucked me until I was so sore I couldn't walk."

Then there was the opera singer whose cock was "no bigger than a raspberry," the junior V.P. who "loved his therapist more than me," the dancer who "would rather I had been a man" and the Andy Frain usher who "climaxed even before he got his pants off."

The women in our survey named 63 different occupations as best lays. As with worst lays, the reasoning sometimes reflected on the women's occupations and sometimes didn't. There were a couple of surprises, though. It is commonly thought that although women may say they want to go out with doctors and lawyers, in their hearts they are longing to be ravished by construction workers, not to mention outlaw bikers. Well, according to our survey, that cherished bit of mythology doesn't hold up. Can you guess which group of men received the most votes as best in bed? Businessmen! Followed by writers, lawyers, the unemployed, teachers, actors, athletes and bartenders. Considering their numbers in the population, there was also an inordinate amount of praise for gamblers, thieves, junkies, pimps, mobsters and other outlaws.

What makes a man good in bed? Does it have anything to do with his occupation? Here are some opinions from around the country:

"The best lay I ever had was a mechanical engineer and, yes, his occupation did have something to do with his being good. He was the kind of guy who liked to tinker with things to see how they worked and that's the way he approached women. I know that sounds weird, but he really knew how to turn me on!"

"A bartender was the best. He had a certain disdain for women, but I'm more uninhibited with someone I'm basically hostile to."

"A telephone installer. He was gentle, took his time and, best of all, he held me for the longest time afterward. There's nothing worse than a fellow who hits and runs."

"I'll never forget the movie director who got me together with another lady. I loved it!"

"I once knew a baseball player with a 14-inch bat and he was always ready to swing."

"I'd have to say that my best lay was an advertising executive. He was fat but terrific at cunnilingus."

"The best was a bus driver, and his occupation was irrelevant. He made me feel as if I were the most desirable woman in the world, even though I knew he was married."

"The best lover I ever had was a bank robber who was wanted by the FBI. First of all, he was incredibly handsome--tall, dark and he never wore (concluded on page 192) Getting Any? (continued from page 154) anything but white suits. From the moment I set eyes on him, I knew I was a goner. Of course, he didn't tell me that he was wanted by the FBI until after we'd spent four hours making love. He discovered erogenous zones I never even knew I had. Afterward, we were lying there in bed and I remember thinking that I would pay half my salary to have a man like him around every day. Then he told me that the reason he'd been on the lam successfully for four years was that he'd found a series of women who would take care of him financially. I told him he could move in with me, but he disappeared the next day. You know, I often wonder whatever became of him. If he should read this, I'd just like him to know he's always welcome."

"A dentist was the best. He knew exactly how much pressure to apply when fondling the breasts--not too hard and not too soft. And when we had intercourse, he didn't expect me to climax look-Ma-no-hands, like most men."

"A computer executive. He was fiery and emotional--not at all the personality you'd expect to find in a computer expert. We had a number of incredible fights and the sex we had while making up was just out of this world."

When talking about their best lovers, many women told us that the man's occupation was not as important as some other factor, such as nationality. When we asked one woman the occupation of her best lover, she answered, "He was a Frenchman." Nothing else about the man mattered to her. Likewise, an actress in Los Angeles told us that she wants to date only Aries men--whatever their occupations. Others said that older men were best, while a Miami girl nominated "anyone with a ten-inch cock."

Almost as an afterthought, we asked the question: Is there any occupation you've given up on entirely? Nearly three quarters of the women with whom we talked said no, they'd hate to think of crossing off an entire group of people just because of one prick. Others were not so lenient. A 29-year-old lab technician from Denver said that she'd never again sleep with a doctor: "They always make me feel like a specimen on a slide." Two roommates, both teachers, said they would have nothing more to do with teachers or bartenders: "Both of those groups talk about you behind your back." Meanwhile, a 25-year-old librarian from New York City told us that she had given up on "anybody who has anything to do with the arts. They're too faggy, especially here in New York."

In summary, it seems evident that you can say that you work at just about any profession and one girl will give you the cold shoulder while another will sit on your face. Yet we can draw certain conclusions: All lawyers should immediately move to Chicago. We can't quite understand this passion that Chicago women have for them, but it's there. Salesmen should avoid New York like the plague, except, of course, salesmen of such oddities as French ticklers, loofah sponges or Red Chinese jewelry. New York females love men who travel to foreign places--and who may want company on the next trip. They are not interested in computer salesmen from St. Louis. In bars across the country, if you ask women which group of men, in their experience, is least likely to get picked up in a bar, they will most often say salesmen. However, if you ask those same women who they do, indeed, pick up in bars, a large percentage of them will say salesmen. So our advice to salesmen is: Hang in there and, if all else fails, practice the art of cunnilingus. More than one woman said she'd date a sewer worker if he had a talented tongue.

Writers will have a good time of it in New York, but they'd better have published something. Editors will have an even easier time, because there are a number of struggling female writers in New York just dying to get published. Meanwhile, struggling male writers will have better luck in places like Denver and Miami, where the girls are dying to talk with any male with an I.Q. over 85.

All you have to be in California--especially Los Angeles--is employed. Unemployment in the entertainment industry is so great that most of the women you meet will be happy that you have the cash to pay for your own drink.

Rich businessmen, movie producers, rock stars and the like don't, as they are quite aware, need any help from us. Unless they weigh 400 pounds or have three balls, these men can find female companionship in any state in the country. And for all of you unemployed masses out there, we have the following advice: Pick any occupation, but become a millionaire. Otherwise, stay unemployed. Some women like men with a lot of time on their hands. Or, better yet, become a thief. There is something about outlaws and men who aren't bound to nine-to-five jobs that is very attractive to women. It also seems that every woman is looking for a man she can't quite tame, a Rhett Butler, a Clint Eastwood or a Mick Jagger. Think about it.

"A 29-year-old lab technician from Denver said that she'd never again sleep with a doctor."